False naked wild buckwheat

Herbs, erect, not scapose, (3-)3.5-9 × 0.5-1 dm, glabrous, grayish. Stems spreading, without persistent leaf bases, up to 5 height of plant; caudex stems absent; aerial flowering stems erect, slender, solid, not fistulose, 1.5-3.5(-4) dm, glabrous.  Leaves basal, 1 per node; petiole (1-)2-4(-6) cm, tomentose; blade spatulate to narrowly obovate, 1-3(-4) × 0.3-0.8(-1.3) cm, densely white-tomentose on both surfaces, margins plane. Inflo-rescences elongate cymose-umbellate, 8-45(-50) × 5-10 cm; branches dichotomous, glabrous; bracts 3-5, scalelike, triangular, 1-2 mm. Peduncles absent. Involucres 2-5 per cluster, turbinate, 3-5 × 2-3 mm, rigid, glabrous; teeth 6-8, erect, 0.5-1 mm. Flowers (1.5-)2.5-3.5 mm; perianth dull greenish white to pale yellow, glabrous; tepals connate proximally, monomorphic, lanceolate to oblong; stamens exserted, 3-5 mm; filaments pilose proximally. Achenes light brown, 2.5-3 mm, glabrous.

Flowering May-Sep. Sandy clay slopes and washes, saltbush and sagebrush communities, juniper woodlands; 700-1200 m; Oreg.

Eriogonum novonudum is known only from a few scattered populations primarily in the Leslie Gulch area of Malheur County. This tall, openly branched species is easily distinguished from the related E. ochrocephalum var. calcareum, in which the inflorescence is reduced to a capitate cluster of involucres.